Donald Trump Thursday night joined in the call for Sen. Marco Rubio to seek reelection, but his
late night tweet may be less about suddenly becoming a Rubio supporter than it is about needing his help to win Florida in this fall's general election.
Trump needs Florida's 29 Electoral College votes to win the White House, reports
Politico, but polls show he is running a
few points behind Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton in that state.
On Thursday, at about 10 p.m., Trump tweeted:
Trump soundly defeated Rubio in Florida's GOP presidential primary election, leading the senator to drop his White House bid. However, polls show that Rubio's fellow Cuban-Americans are not in favor of Trump, and could cause problems in his race in November.
According to a poll conducted by Coral Gables pollster Dario Moreno, a Florida International University associate politics professor, Rubio's fellow Miami-area Cuban-Americans dislike Trump to the point that they could shift the state away from its usual GOP vote, reports
The Miami Herald.
According to Mareno's survey, 10 percent of the Cuban-Americans polled said they will not vote at all if Trump is nominated.
His findings mirrored those from a national poll in April conducted by
Latino Decisions, which showed 73 percent of Florida's Hispanic voters had a "very unfavorable" opinion about Trump, who secured the GOP nomination on Thursday.
Earlier on Thursday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell asked GOP caucus members to raise their hands if they wanted Rubio to stay, and all agreed, reports
Politico.
But even with the growing call for Rubio to seek reelection, he insisted on Thursday that "nothing has changed" about his intentions to stay out of the race, and that it is "unlikely" he will try to return to Washington.
If Rubio stays out of the race, Florida could potentially lose its Republican Senate seat.
According to the current polls, Democratic Rep. Patrick Murphy is holding a small lead over the five Republicans running to replace Rubio. Florida will hold its primary election on Aug. 30 for the race.
Rubio said he is backing longtime friend Lt. Gov. Carlos Lopez-Cantera in the race, and continued to back the state official on Thursday.
"I understand the argument and the people who are coming forward and asking me to reconsider are people I respect and enjoy serving with," Rubio said. "But I have a really good friend running for the Senate who I think is a good candidate, who I think gives us a real good chance to win if he were to be nominated."
And Rubio's allies are saying that they doubt he'll seek the seat against Lopez-Cantera or ask him to drop out of the race.
Homebuilder Carlos Beruff has spent $3 million of his own money in the primary campaign, reports Politico. Businessman Todd Wilcox and U.S. Reps. Ron DeSantis and David Jolly are also seeking the nomination.
Trump posted his tweet hours after Rubio told CNN he would speak on Trump's behalf at the Republican National Convention. It's a turnabout from the heated primary battles between the two candidates, but Rubio said he does not want Clinton to win.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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